a journey through [the bizarre world of] gestational surrogacy

First FOF

We kicked off our FOF (Fund Our Family) Campagin this weekend with a garage sale. We organized it all from start to finish in less than 2 weeks and I happily report that our first FOF event was a success! We have a long way to go, but I am really encouraged by how well we did.

Here are a few photos from our pricing and set up. At the end of the sale, we had a “Buy a Bag for $5 and Fill it Up” special. Mostly my intent was to move stuff so I don’t have to store it till the next sale, but the shoppers response to that was great. It moved stuff and brought in $$ so it was a win win! (I’d highly suggest doing something like that if you have a fundraising garage sale.) We probably sold about 10 bags during that “special.” I also marked everything 50% off at noon on the last day.

The pricing took forever. We were so blessed with such amazing donations!! Don’t worry. This stuff was not all laying around my house. At least seven different households contributed to this mess that has been our living room for two weeks! Scary how much junk we people can accumulate.

Sale set up was made possible by my amazing f3c who spent the night on my couch and got up early to help me open on time!! No way I could have gotten this all together without her help!!!

I had several friends come help with the sale, one of whom is the gracious forever friend who is also offering us her uterus. (I should also mention she helped on her birthday! What a gal, I tell ya!) Some special friends my former housemates, surprised me; they traveled for an hour to come shop and support us. Perfect strangers offered prayers and well wishes with their purchases. One lady offered to donate clothes she has from her children for our next sale. I had one man who is a neighbor, tell me through his tears that he could feel God moving in our story.

Seriously, what a weekend! What a kick off! I’m exhausted and so is SL but it was all totally worth it.

Now it’s time to recover from the sale – we are finding these stickers everywhere!!! As we pack left over things in bins and get ready for the next sale, we are also listing some bigger items on craigslist and planning other fund raising efforts. Check back often for details!!